ET had reported last year that Subramanian was likely to launch her own venture, along with select former Mu Sigma employees.Mu Sigma’s former CEO Ambiga Subramanian and ex-head of operations Goutham Ekollu, have cofounded hyphen.social, a social-networking application.

Subramanian, Ekollu and his wife Krishnaveni Kumbaji have been working on hyphen.social for approximately one year, but registered the company under the name Vittr in January 2017.

The startup, which will launch its app within the next few weeks, focuses on increasing social engagement by leveraging anonymity and gamification as key tools. The app also has features that aim to curb fake forwards and improve engagement within the network.

ET had reported last year that Subramanian was likely to launch her own venture, along with select former Mu Sigma employees, while she negotiated selling her stake in the company for an estimated $300-400 million after parting ways with co-founder and husband Dhiraj Rajaram. Several employees had also sold their shares as part of the deal.

As part of the exit deal, Subramanian and Ekollu have signed a non-compete agreement under which they could not start anything in data analytics. According to Ekollu, 50% of the startup is funded by him and his wife and the remaining 50% is funded by Subramanian.

“During a discussion between Ambiga and I, we discussed the need for authentic conversations amongst people and how anonymity enables that in multiple environments, whether it be at work, at college or any social connection,” Ekollu told ET, confirming the launch venture.

There is an element of gamification prevalent through the anonymity feature on hyphen.social, where an individual user can make one guess behind any anonymous post in the group, and if a higher number of people make an accurate guess, the person’s name is revealed. The end user can choose to use their identity, an alias or be anonymous while posting messages.

“Anonymity is a double-edged sword. It can enable authentic conversations, but can also reduce accountability in people. There is a lot of research available on understanding group and individual behavior in anonymous settings. We have tapped into some of them to come up with gamification within the app around anonymity,” Subramanian told ET.

Subramanian and Ekollu believe that their social networking app could be an alternative to Facebook, where many youngsters have parents, grandparents or teachers and other such individuals in front of whom they may choose to behave in a different fashion, compared to their friends or colleagues.

The platform is targeting a diverse age group, from teenagers to 40-something-year-olds. However, it will begin by targeting college students and see how the traction picks up.

“We want to engage the younger age group in the app, as early adopters. The app has a lot of new features, which will require some getting used to. The young folks in our test group enjoyed exploring these features on their own,” added Subramanian.

Subramanian is looking into the design and research of the app, while Ekollu and Kumbaji manage application development with the help of a lean team of programmers from another startup, called InnovatorsBay. Additionally, they have also hired a recent college graduate and have plans to hire a strong tech team to grow the app.

Other social networking sites who have focused on anonymity as a core feature, include a string of US-based social networking apps including California-headquartered Whisper, Secret App, Wut, and Yik Yak, among others, a majority of which have shut down failing to monetise despite gaining users.

“Monetisation is not something we are looking at right now, the idea is to first gain traction, get users on board, but in the future, there are various opportunities for monetisation, from customizing features for corporates or organisations to subscription-based revenue for brands interacting with their users to advertisements,” Ekollu added.